In Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) present in modern electronic devices, transitions and/or animations are often used as a graphical effect to e.g. visualize a structure or a conceptual model of an application so that a user of an electronic device may understand the structure of the application, and thus may navigate more efficiently through the information architecture of an application. An example of this is applications that use the Drawer User Interface (UI) component, reveal this component on launch of the application and display a transition throughout during launch of the application. Transitions and/or animations may also be used to provide an enchanting feeling of advanced and polished technological implementation. An example of this is the 2.5 dimensional list animation used in Windows Modern/Metro UI.
In present GUIs a general target of 250 msec is often used as a standard time for animations or transitions as this is a value allowing the user to understand and appreciate the graphical effect without growing overly tired of the effect once it is learned.
A problem is that once the user has understood the structure of an application and been enchanted, there is a risk that repetition of the transition, or animation, provides little value to the user. On the contrary, constant repetition of the transition or animation may instead annoy the user by slowing down the UI. The animation or transition that served an emotional and/or pedagogical function in the beginning loses that function once the UI is understood and the user simply want to proceed with their task in the most efficient manner.
Attempts to solve this problem are for example the types of nudges that SoMC sometimes use in e.g. the Homescreen application where the button that launches the Application Tray does a scale up/down animation when a user starts using the application. After the user successfully has pressed the button on seven occasions it will no longer do the scaling animation.
Another way of solving the above mentioned problem is to provide a possibility for the user to change the time for a graphical effect to be shown. However, spending time on such changes may be annoying to the user.